


In Briars Bound

by NevillesGran



Series: Tales of Whitestone Castle [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Canonical Character Death (Kind of), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dehumanization, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Torture, evil!brotp #aesthetic still strong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 01:54:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12244803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: In a version of Exandria where the hidden city of Whitestone has been ruled for centuries by a cold and clever lord and a wild woman who wields the power of nature itself...a pair of twins and a bear wander into the wrong forest.There are consequences. There is sacrifice.





	In Briars Bound

**Author's Note:**

> If you aren't comfortable with normally Good (or Neutral) characters being explicitly evil, and hurting characters who canonically are their friends and loved ones, then this is NOT the fic for you.

Far in the northern reaches of Tal’Dorei, beyond towering forests of ancient trees and taller-yet mountains of the purest white stone, there lies a land abandoned by the gods. Or, perhaps, wrested from their control, by the Lord and Lady who there rule. The city is small but full of life, overrun by mighty trees and guarded by fearsome beasts, fortified by the Lady’s power. A few humanoids live there as well. The castle stands upon a hill, its white walls gleaming bright in the sun beneath their lacework of thorny vines. The path up is clear, even of snow - the Lord’s tricks protect his home, raining fire and death on all who would dare challenge the ancient house.

Or sometimes, the Lord and Lady have a little fun.

\- - -

Once upon a time...

Two half-elves sprint through the forest, a bear at their heels. He isn’t chasing them, save to keep up. 

Even on unfamiliar ground, the young woman is at home. This is her element: the silent shifting of leaves, the trees flashing by, the building anticipation in her chest. The hunt. 

Normally, however, she is on the other side. Normally, she is not bleeding from an iron slug in her shoulder, her bow dropped half a mile back.

The young man moves less smoothly, like he is used to larger shadows and more people. Still, he leaps from tree to tree with a cat burglar’s grace, and weaves between light and shade like the most experienced of hidden creatures. He knows what it is to be prey. His clothes, worn to start, are torn half to pieces, bloody furrows down his back.

The bear lumbers after them, breathing heavily. His nose is raked and bleeding just as the man’s back, and the fur along one side singed dark by flame. He is otherwise unhurt. For a moment he races ahead, when the twins skid to a stop in a small clearing.

“Keep going, darling,” says the woman. She waves the bear on with her uninjured arm. “I don’t think we’re going to get out here without splitting up. Try to just...blend in, okay? You’re a bear in the forest.”

She turns to her brother, pacing in the shadows. Looking into the thick trees behind them, and all around them. “You too, Vax. Sneak off—no, come here first, and I’ll heal you, and then we’ll split up.”

“Don’t be stupid, Stubby,” says Vax. He pulls a glass vial from a pouch on his belt and throws it to her, though the motion makes him wince. “You’re hurt way worse. Take this, save your spell, and I’ll meet you back south.”

“Don’t you be stupid,” she says. She sounds close to tears. She catches the potion, but she advances on him with it. “We’ve lost them for now, but we only have a minute-”

“That’s terribly optimistic of you.”

The drawl comes from above: a man standing on a tree branch, as calm and well-balanced as if he stood in his own front hall. He appears to be in his mid-twenties, though his hair is snow-white. His clothes, too, fine silks in dark blue and lavender, are far more suited to a formal hall than the heart of a wild northern forest. The weapon in his hands is long and metal-barreled, and suited to nowhere.

Vax draws a knife and his sister reaches for a bow she does not have, and the bear roars fiercely in his mother’s defense. The lord in the tree smiles as a white tiger leaps into the clearing with a fiercer-yet snarl.

\- - - 

Vax was upside-down. He was several other things, too - thirsty, unwashed, and bleeding from a hundred cuts where the briars dug into his body. But the  _ upside-down _ was really starting to get to him. His head ached, his ears rang with vertigo, and he couldn’t breathe right. 

Though maybe that was the briars. They grew out from every surface of the balcony, walls and floor and broken rail, and wound around him from the tender arches of his feet to the half-cracked ribs in his chest. They ran down his arms and up his shoulders, bit at the thin webbing between his fingers and tangled in his falling hair. They gripped tighter each time he so much as twitched, thirsty thorns tearing his skin to get at the blood beneath.

All but the tendril that wrapped around his throat. That one only moved when his captor touched it.

“Please,” he whispered hoarsely, careful of the barbs against his throat.

“Hm?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her look up from the book she’d been pretending to read. Supposedly, they were out on this balcony for afternoon reading light. He knew better. She liked to show him off, even though nobody was watching. She liked to see him struggle. 

“Please…”

She traced a hand between the briars curved around his side. “Yes? If you want to use your words so much, you have to keep doing it, remember.”

He would give her this: she deserved the title “Lady” more than any woman he’d met in Syngorn. Her grace wasn’t a fancy, stilted thing. It was born of wilderness, and complete confidence in her power. Any idiot would consider it an honor to be flung at her feet.

Vax swallowed carefully. His head temples throbbed, his skin too tight with pooling blood. Even his eyes hurt.

“Please...get the branch out of your ass and go fuck yourself with it again.”

Her gasp was so offended that he had to believe she was genuinely surprised at his ability to still be an asshole. Vax grinned.

Keyleth’s nails elongated to jagged claws as she gripped his chin. She dragged his face to look at her.  

“That wasn’t even _ nice _ ,” she snarled.

Her nails dug in until she drew blood, and across his body, the briars did the same. Vax gasped and choked on blood as the thorny collar joined in. Black spots danced over his vision, obscuring Keyleth’s shining eyes and fire hair. The thorns only gouged deeper as he jerked for air, tearing him to pieces inch by inch, and he dreamed he could feel the life draining from his body. It was swallowed by the green and the fire-

“Keyleth!”

She dropped his head as she looked away, with an exasperated, “What?” The briars stopped tightening, but Vax had to keep fighting for each pained, bloody breath. 

A pair of fine boots entered his swimming vision.

“Oh, what’s he done to deserve that?” Percival’s voice, a moment ago urgent, settled back to its usual cool amusement. Now  _ there _ was fancy, stilted grace.

“He won’t stop talking.” Keyleth sighed wistfully. “I don’t know how you do it, Percy. He’s cute, but it’s so much work. And he fights everything I try to make him stop.” 

Compliments were great and all but Vax did not give a shit. He had maybe one full breath left in his body, and fewer seconds before he passed out from pain. He was going to use them for the only important thing left. 

He had to shape his lips several strangled times before he could get sound through them. Blood bubbled with the word. 

“Vex?”

“Oh, yes.” Percival moved like he was shrugging something off his shoulder, and dropped it at his feet. “I was experimenting with some new wiring and – She’s only been dead for a couple minutes, so, you can bring her back, right?”

“Percy! No, I– That’s not how it– You can’t just–”

Vax couldn’t breathe. The thorns tore his flesh as he strained forward but he was numb, absent, floating away from that world. The world was Vex in a heap on the floor, pale and motionless. Vex is parts, or was that his dancing sight; skin bare and hair unbraided and body dropped on the stones like some empty, useless thing. Red branches arched over her jumbled limbs and her face was waxy, her eyelids still. Her chest unmoving.

“ – It’s not that simple – ”

Please.

She was so small. Vax didn’t remember her being this small. She wasn’t moving.

_ Please _ .

“ – and it’s really not my specialty—I mean, I do plants! And animals! Which – ”

If he could just get to her—if she could just sit up and laugh at his worry, wink it all away. Blink.  _ Breathe _ .

_ “Please _ – _ ” _

Claws tore away the choker at Vax’s throat and he coughed, blood. It spilled down over his face, over the hands suddenly propping his head up. They didn’t flinch away. 

He tried to glare up at Percival, because the man was standing between him and Vex. He couldn’t stop coughing up blood. It seeped from his lips and his throat in place of air. 

Percival glanced at Keyleth, across Vax’s convulsing body. She pursed her lips and laid a hand on his throat—gentle, now. Calloused but warm against his clammy skin. He groaned as the warmth settled into him like sunlight, mending torn muscle and vein. The briars shifted and tugged him, digging only bluntly, until he was nearly upright.

“That was starting to sound nice,” Keyleth gave him an encouraging nod.

“But what does he have to offer?” Percival remained cold.

Vax barely spared him glance. The sun set Keyleth’s hair alight, and in the shadow of her face, her eyes glinted green-gold. 

“Anything,” Vax gasped. “Bring her back—can you? Please?” He still couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see anything but Vex, small and still. “I’ll do anything. Use my life, take- anything. I’ll give anything.  _ Please. _ ”

Keyleth’s smile was a hunting cat’s, and bright as the sun itself. 

A wave of her hand and Vax was on the floor, ubound. His head pulsed as they spoke over him, Keyleth high and Percival drawling. As Vax shoved himself up on torn hands and joints that screamed in protest, and crawled the punishing few inches to Vex (Vex’s body.)

She wasn’t cold. She was barely even bleeding. (It was from, Vax saw as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, a thousand cuts, ranging from slight to a massive Y down her chest. But they were neat, stitched with thread, and partially healed.)

Keyleth left in a rush of powerful wings, and Vax buried his face in Vex’s hair and tried to inhale the scent of her. He’d been waiting--days? Weeks? They’d never been apart before. 

She smelled of blood and iron. Wrong.

“I don’t suppose you can stand,” said Percival. 

He sounded vaguely annoyed. Out of sheer spite, Vax gritted his teeth and pressed one palm against the ground, more tear than skin. With the other, he kept ahold of Vex. He drew one knee to his chest for leverage and pushed up, teeth bared in a snarl. 

Something in his knee snapped before he was halfway to his feet. He couldn’t stop a cry before he hit the pale stones. They were smeared with blood, his and Vex’s.

“No, I didn’t think so.” That godsdamn dry humor was back, like this was some sort of game _. _

Cool hands gripped Vax under his arms, calloused and strong. Percival lifted him with a grunt and started dragging him across the floor. It peeled open what ragged skin the briars had left on his legs, air biting like burning needles where it was never meant to touch. With him came Vex, an even limper doll then he.

“This would likely be easier in two trips.”

“Fuck...off,” Vax gasped, and did not let go of his sister.

Percival could likely have pried Vax’s grip apart. He didn’t. With some swearing under his breath when Vax’s broken knee ran into the doorway (Vax blacked out for a few breaths, but didn’t let go of Vex) he pulled them down the hallway and into the dumbwaiter. 

Vax still couldn’t breathe right. There wasn’t enough room in his chest. He curled around Vex’s still, fragile body and glared up at Percival. “Now what.”

Percival wiped his bloody hands on his pants. “Now you wait, while I bring you down.”

Vax must have passed out again. The next thing he knew, they were outside and Percival was shoving him into a wooden cart just large enough to lie down in. Below them stretched the forest, with bits of city peeking through here and there as they shone in the sun.

Vex was still on the ground behind him. Vax scrabbled at the sides of the cart - only a foot or so high, but when he tried to pull himself up, his shoulders  _ screamed. _

“Give her back,” he croaked. “Give her back, you sonofa-”

Percival dropped Vex’s body unceremoniously on top of him. Vax nearly passed out again.

“Honestly,” Percival said as he went around to at seat at the front of the cart, “I can see why Keyleth wants you silenced. I’m surprised she didn’t just gag you.”

“I’ll gag  _ you _ ,” Vax muttered reflexively. He slid down the side another inch. The smooth wood dragged against him like sandpaper, but it was better than the breeze, a knife in his raw flesh.

Percival laughed, and set the cart in motion by some supernatural mechanical means. 

Guiding the contraption down the metal tracks set into the hill seemed to take his full attention. Vax was just tired enough, just broken enough, not to argue further. He lay against the low wall of the cart and held Vex close. She was getting cold, now. For a moment he turned her over so he could run his fingers through her hair. Rebraid it. She would hate it so messy like this.

But he couldn’t see her face then, so he turned her back. And his fingers were too fumbling, too torn and still-bleeding, to make her hair anything but worse. So he stopped.

Her burns—were they burns?—were worst around her neck. They spun out from there like wings down her back, like the branching trees she always loved to climb. Her neck itself was just red and raw, like she had been collared. Vax felt the skin at his own neck. Matching, always. 

He hated these people. He hated them like he’d never hated anything in his life; not his father, not dragons, not his own shaking hands. And he couldn’t do a gods-fucking-damned thing about it.

“Where are we going?” Vax asked, as the cart eased off the slope and into the trees. His voice rasped past the scars on his throat. “Where did your bitch-”

Vax stared down cold metal. Percival hadn’t seemed to move but now he was driving one-handed, his strange, thundering weapon aimed between Vax’s eyes. He didn’t even look back.

It looked wonderfully quick. But if Vax died here, who would look out for his sister?

“...Where did  _ Lady Keyleth _ go,” Vax said with as much sarcasm as he could muster. “She said she would help. Where are we going?  _ Sir _ .”

The weapon moved, clicked, and settled into place again. Vax imagined he could see something moving, far up its dark muzzle. He clutched Vex tight.

Percival sighed, clicked it again, and the whole thing disappeared back to his waist. 

“You  _ are _ a matched set,” he said. “And Keyleth would be so angry if I broke her toy, too.” He didn’t turn around, but did speak up enough for Vax to hear him. “We’re going to the center of the city, where the ley lines meet. Keyleth will meet us there to resurrect Vex’ahlia.”

The cart jerked on the path and Vax almost vomited as his head slammed back against the wood. Black spots swam. The wood of the cart dragged at his torn skin and bared muscles. He'd find splinters in his bones.

The trees pulled away again as they entered the city. So did the people. Vax glimpsed faces in windows, a few heads bowing as people backed into the nearest doorways rather than face the dark lord of their land.

Percival beckoned to one too slow, a young woman with dull brown hair. She froze, eyes darting like a trapped animal before they tucked firmly back down. 

“My lord?”  she asked, keeping up with the cart with a hesitant gait. 

“I require a dozen candles and a good straight-edge. Quickly, now.” He didn’t even slow for a turn.

The city center held a tree. It was greater than any other in the forest, a trunk wider than three of Vax could reach around with branches that stretched across the entire square, itself large enough to hold a ball in. Late afternoon sunlight brushed over it, lighting every crag of ancient bark in warm gold.

It was felled, torn up by the roots. They were as thick as a man and tall as any two, laid on their sides as they were. Like with the branches, the near-setting sun turned their dead, grey bark almost warm again.

Where it had once stood was a new tree, far younger but standing tall. A mountain pine, dark and evergreen. Its shadow fell on the ancient giant.

The road with its strange metal tracks ran past the square. Percival stopped the cart and leapt off like a schoolboy, and considered Vax for a moment before slamming a fist into his broken ribs.

When Vax could breathe again without sobbing, he was alone. Vex was laid at the base of the evergreen and Percival was sketching something in the dark earth around her. The girl must have come and gone; he had a straight-edge and candles. 

Vax had to breathe carefully, and push himself up against the cart wall a couple  _ agonizing _ inches, before he could shout, “What the hell?”

Percival was facing away and Vax could still tell he was rolling his eyes.

But he walked back and picked Vax up without complaint, touch almost gentle. Like Vax was fragile and important.

Jostled anyway, Vax was distracted by the way his blood dripped as they walked back across the road. As Percival walked. There was a pool of it in the cart. 

Percival tucked Vax between Vex and the evergreen tree, her head in his lap. Vax tried not to move. The bark tore at his back.

He brushed a lock of hair away from Vex’s face. Percival had laid her out like she was whole, like she was just sleeping. Except for the red wings crawling down her shoulders, and the long slice down her chest that had started to rip open. Vax guessed that didn’t matter, if Keyleth was going to fix her. 

He glanced up and found Percival’s face doing...something. It was hard to tell, with the sun behind his head.

“Keyleth will set her right,” Percival said abruptly, and turned away. He picked up the candles and started placing them around the twins and the tree, on the edge of the pattern that Vax did not understand.

Dead wood cracked and fell as Keyleth strode through the twisted roots of the dead tree. A familiar shape lumbered at her heels, head ducked under her guiding palm, and Vax sat up straight before he remembered how much that  _ hurt _ . 

Trinket didn’t so much as blink. Not until they were only a few feet away and Keyleth took her hand from his ruff, and something glassy faded from his eyes.

Then, he roared. Then, he leapt forward, erasing half of Percival’s careful lines, and sniffed frantically at Vex until she no longer looked quite so whole. Then, he licked the blood from Vax’s face and turned on the Lord and Lady with a snarl so vicious Vax almost reached for a dagger he didn’t have. Instead, tears dripped down his cheeks. He would have said it was the smell of the bear ass just above his head. It was more the staunch, furry legs on either side, the familiar bristle all around as Trinket stood over him and Vex, backed against the tree as firmly as possible, and roared at anyone who’d dare come near.

Keyleth roared back. It sounded like a bear, but there was the lilt of her voice to it. Trinket snapped his jaws. Keyleth growled. Trinket snarled, low and guttural. 

Percival’s weapon gave its quiet-loud  _ click _ . Vax smoothed away another piece of Vex’s hair, struggling to breathe without moving his ribs. Keyleth snarled something back, savage as the uncaring wilderness, and Trinket…

Trinket growled unhappily and stepped to the side, leaving Vax and Vex exposed again.

“Thank you,” Keyleth said acidly, in Common this time. She looked down at the strewn candles and ravaged design in the dirt. “Dammit, we need to redo this, I guess.”

“What are we doing?” Vax tried to keep the desperation out of his voice.  _ We _ , like he could do a godsdamned thing.

Keyleth patted his head. “You just wait quietly. When it's your turn, you just beg, basically.”

_ Anything _ . He waited quietly.

It didn’t take long to redraw the patterns, to set up the candles and light them. The flames were pale against the light of the setting sun. They would grow—the mountains in the west brought dusk early, and the trees held it close. 

Keyleth settled cross-legged at Vex’s feet, eyes closed, and Percival stalked back and forth beside her. The last sunbeams spilled around her, and Vax could swear they turned green as she began to chant in a language he didn’t recognize. Barely noticeable at first, the faintest tint of bright light through fresh leaves. Then a wind picked up and the candles flared, and the light flowed from Keyleth’s hands over Vex’s pale skin, lighting it with flickering black-green and white-gold. 

“Go,” said Keyleth. Her voice echoed in the open space. She beckoned to Trinket.

He lowed uncertainly, shuffling his feet.

“Just speak with your heart,” she advised. She sounded almost sympathetic. “She will hear you.”

Trinket stepped as carefully as a 600lb grizzly could into the circle. He was a  _ good _ bear, and didn’t even smudge the pattern. 

His whine was the most plaintive Vax had ever heard, and he’d been there when Trinket was teething. He licked Vex’s cheek with a gentle snuffle and sat back. 

The candles shone brighter behind him, flickering red-gold-white-green.

“Your turn.” Keyleth pointed at Vax, eyes still closed.

Bending over was like being punched in the ribs again. His vision swam black and red. But Vex’s face remained clear, the mirror it was. Upside down in his lap—Vax pressed his forehead to her chest, the best he could reach. Mixing their blood again.

“Come on, Stubby,” he whispered. “Come back to me. You-”

He had to sit up, coughing blood into his arm. 

“You’ll get out of this. You’re brilliant, so much better than me.” The light washed over his hands as he gripped her shoulders. It stung his torn skin like campfire sparks. “ _ Please _ , Vex, I can’t— do not go from me. Not like this.”

For a moment, there was- something. The candles flared again and something swelled in Vax’s chest, warm and secure. Reaching out. He didn’t look away from Vex’s face.

Nothing else happened. The wind whipped around them like nails driving under Vax’s skin, and the sun sank another millimeter behind the mountain.

“Percy?”

Vax looked up as a familiar, bloodstained hand entered his field of vision, and placed something on Vex’s torn-open chest. It was a paperweight, glass around diamond, the gem carved in the shape of a curving sun.

Percival’s touch lingered but his voice was nothing but disapproving and cold.

“Really, Vex’ahlia. Are you going to leave your brother to suffer here alone?”

The candles blazed again, little more than balls of flame, now. The wind bit into Vax like whips of ice and spun Keyleth’s hair into a crimson cloud, and when she opened her eyes, they sparked with the same black-white-green lightning that played over Vex’s body. No trace of sunlight remained. 

The lightning raced over Vax, too, and through him, coming from the tree at his back. But he could no more pull away than he could fly. The bark shivered, gashing his back anew, and the ground shook in tandem. Keyleth gripped Vex’s ankles with claws and snarled, not like a bear but like herself, and something in Vax’s chest drew taut until he could not breathe again-

And Vex jerked, and coughed, and opened her eyes. For a moment they shone with the same, strange light. Then it faded, and they were their mother’s dark chocolate brown.

Vax collapsed on her in a smothering hug. He was probably crying.

“Vax?” His sister’s muffled voice cracked as her arms came up to feel his torn shoulders. “Vax, god, you’re-”

She shoved him away, twisting, shedding shimmering dust as she sat up. The paperweight had dissolved.

“Ew, you’re naked,” she said, and hugged him like he was the last solid thing in the universe.

Vax clung back, never mind the pain where she (also naked) touched. Everything hurt. The ground hurt. Vex was whole again, warm and breathing, scars all looking years old; that was what mattered. 

Trinket nosed in, smothering them both with fur and smelly bear kisses. Vex giggled and hugged him, too. Vax was getting blood all over them both, and snot and tears.

“You’re okay, you're okay, you're okay-”

Vex kissed his forehead. She was crying, too. “Of course I'm okay.”

Behind Trinket came the soft  _ flumpf _ of a woman splaying backwards in the fresh dirt. 

“You owe me,” Keyleth accused.

“Always,” Percival said fondly.

Then he was there, pulling Vex away. His weapon pointed between Trinket’s eyes.

“Stop!” snapped Keyleth, and thorny vines whipped out of the earth and wrapped around the bear’s legs before he could lunge anyway. They caught Vax as well, dragging him flat on his back. He whimpered at the pain.

“Let me go, you fuck!” Vex swung at any part of Percival she could reach, kicking like a trapped rabbit. “Give me one second, you- holy shit. You killed me. You sack of shit, you  _ killed _ me!”

“Yes,” said Percival. He adjusted his grip on her waist and swung her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry “So perhaps you could oblige me in settling down and going to sleep when I tell you to, for once?”

She kicked at his chest. Her shouts were clear but her movements were slow and haphazard. Exhausted. 

“You said she wouldn’t hurt him as much!” Her voice broke again. “You shit, you  _ said _ – ”

Percival rolled his eyes, and shot Vax in the already-broken knee.

Everything went white for a while. Hot. Screaming. Then dark.

When it came back, he was being held. The deceptively soft wash of Keyleth’s healing magic was familiar; he shoved away from her and craned his head desperately for Vex. 

Or, he tried to. He mostly just collapsed in the dirt. He wasn’t healed, he was just awake. He was still a mess of blood and torn skin, of muscle exposed to the air in a way that was just  _ wrong _ , or ripped until his limbs hung at odd angles.

He caught a glimpse of Percival’s cart turning a distant corner as Keyleth pulled his screaming limbs back into her lap. Trinket trailed close behind the contraption.

“Nuh-uh,” Keyleth chided, dragging his face back to hers. “You promised remember? I brought her back, so you’re going to be good, now.”

_ Anything _ . 

“Tell me she’ll be alright,” Vax demanded.

Keyleth laughed, cat eyes growing bright in the twilight. 

“I mean, that’s kind of up to Percy? But don’t worry.” She petted Vax’s hair, leaning down and smiling like she was sharing a secret. “I think he likes her.  _ Like _ -likes her. He almost never worries about killing people that much, otherwise.”

Vax swallowed. Vex- Vex could work with that. She’d worked with less, in the past. She was the survivor. He was the one who had to be beaten and broken to bridle.

Gods but he felt broken.

Vax closed his eyes, like that would make it better. “Then I...apologize. My lady. For...being rude.” He tried to relax into her grip like she clearly wanted—except everything  _ hurt _ . Every inch of him hurt like a fresh brand from the Clasp (gods, he wished he was back with those crime rats.)

“Shh.” Keyleth brushed her thumb along his cheekbone. “I said Percy cares about that formal stuff, not me, didn’t I?” She rested her hands on either side of his temples. “Just relax, now. Don’t fight me this time.”

This magic didn’t wash: it scoured. It rushed through him like a burning storm, wiping him clean. His fear, his senses, his racing thoughts… There was something welcoming about it, the relief of a scalding hot shower. Vax dove into it ( _ anything, please _ ), and let everything but the burn fade away…

He blinked. He was being held, lying on the ground with his shoulders in a woman’s lap. She had dark skin, orange hair, and bright, green-gold eyes.

He didn’t like her. She looked nice but she  _ wasn’t _ ; her eyes were too sharp and her smile too thin. He hurt all over, and he was pretty sure it was her fault.

Where was – There was someone who should be here instead, who he  _ needed _ . Who was his and he was hers and there was a third one, too, big and furry. None of them should ever be apart but especially he and her, her and him, always them—

He tried to scramble away from the scary woman but he fell down again because everything  _ hurt _ . Everything hurt so much that he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe; there was only hurt and his always-her-and-him was gone—

The scary one made shushing noises and put her hands back on his head. They were warm, and the warm ran through him, pushing away the hurt. He watched in fascination as his skin pulled back together. It was so good—so  _ not-bad,  _ not-hurt—that it made him tingle and moan in her lap.

That made her laugh, and run her hand down his side. That was even warmer, more hurt gone, so he wiggled happily into the touch. Maybe she wasn’t that bad after all?

She stroked her hand across his throat, trailing more soft warmth and a little strip of thorny plants. They tickled as they settled around his neck. He didn't like it, but it didn't feel  _ bad _ . And she smiled again, which was...good? When she smiled, she made him feel good.

He curled his body around her lap, seeking warmth in the cold, grey night. She pet his hair, which was nice for him, too.

Maybe if he made her smile a lot, she could help him find his-always again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, Resurrection is a clerics-only spell...but I'm not going to argue with the archdruid with claim to the power to two ley lines. Are you?
> 
> And hey - leave a comment! What was your favorite part? Did anything make you shiver? What's your opinion on the characters, imagery, what might happen next...?


End file.
